End Of Charity by Nic Frances

http://www.allenandunwin.com/default.aspx?page=94&book=9781741752632

Open Letter of Resignation to the Anglican Diocese, Melbourne.

Dear Bishop,

It’s all about love.

The major part of my journey to become a priest was made hand in hand with my wife Philippa. Who I am and who I become is in great part a credit to who she is.  I love her and am grateful for her love and support.  We both had an amazing support team during our time together in England, so many lovely people, particularly H & Q, Sarah and Charlie, Nick and Wendy, Mick and Gill, Liam and Maggie, David and Maggie, Pascale, …… and the list would be long.  Thank you for your love and support.

More recently, the support team is much broader.  Thank you to many but particularly Bill and Di, Leisa and Chris, Nick, Leffy, Amber, Paul and especially Rachel.  There are of course many young people who have made it wonderful like Adam and Tessa, James and my God son Tommy, Chiara and Dario, Flynn, Michaela, Liam and Luka, Laura and Rachel but most importantly – for they fill my heart daily Charlie and Holly.

Mum, Dad, Angie, Paul and Jeremy, thankyou.  And in loving memory of Nanny and Danny.

Thank you Brad, who died last year, but had read the draft, I hope you liked it. I loved him.
Present Tense

Your holy hearsay

Is not evidence;

Give me the good news

In the present tense.

What happened

Nineteen hundred years ago

May not have happened:

How am I to know?

The living truth

Is what I long to see;

I cannot lean

Upon what used to be.

So shut the bible up

And show me how

The Christ you talk about

Is living now.

Sydney Carter

Dear Phillip

I think it is time for me to resign my license to officiate.

I became a priest because I wanted the focus of my life to be about love.  I believed that the work of a priest was to hold a space or create the opportunity for people to explore, name and discover love publicly, to be able to talk about love, or the lack of it, in their lives and the world - other than when they were drunk at the end of a party or passively watching an ‘Oprah’ show on television.

I wanted to support that journey to become more loving, for it to be real, shared and experienced with others, not a private matter in our heads, but practised and remembered with others.

I am becoming more loving because I am challenged, held accountable, reminded and loved to continue on my journey even when I don’t want to, by those who are on the journey with me and can remind me why it is important to continue when I get scared and lost.

I am resigning my licence because, as a priest, I hold this journey towards being more loving as the most important thing I do.  But there is little left that I do in ‘the church’ that supports this journey.  At its best, it allows me to be a colourful maverick that can challenge the status quo.  Mostly it is indifferent to any real exploration of love and its consequences.  But sadly, and in great measure, it is part of the problem, and in the case of the growing fundamentalist movement, abusive to individuals and damaging to the chance of healthy, loving communities.

Our religion, when held as Jesus’ search for love in a complex world, has a great contribution to make in helping us to create love and peace in the world and for individuals.

But as a story of right over wrong, exclusive and fundamental, it separates and isolates us as individuals and societies.  It forces us to fight for our religion to be the right one.

This fight has no value in helping to create a world of love.  As a Christian I believe this is the opposite of what Jesus was searching for and teaching about.  I cannot find this search for love any longer, in any meaningful way, in the business of our faith.

I am writing to you as the gracious, loving man that you are for two reasons.  Firstly to explain as fully as I can why I am leaving, because as much as anyone who remains in the church, you have made me welcome and encouraged me.  I am truly grateful for this, and honour and respect you for the way you are.

Secondly, because you remain in the church and I know you are passionate to create that living, loving society that I have tried to support, I believe that my writing this publicly and you responding may be part of making the church I had hoped to be part of more real.

As always, there will be those who consider this letter to be naïve, attention seeking and harmful to the ‘cause’ of love.  I have had enough of ‘them’.  I wish to be honest about my faith, my life and my search for love.  The space for that search was too small inside the church.  I will look for ways of being the priest I so care about ‘outside’. 

This letter is the start of that journey.

p.s.            At some points in this letter I use very personal experiences to explain my thinking and action. My faith, priesthood and theology is a coming together of the psychological, sociological and intellectual.  These are not easily separated and so I have allowed the jumble to appear here, as that is how it is as I live it.

p.p.s.            Phillip, I have written this to you but in a style that may suit itself to sharing more broadly or publishing.  For now and until we have discussed it, it is just for us.

A bit of history

Before I name the reasons I am leaving, I want to start by briefly explaining why I joined the church. 

I grew up in Southampton, England.  My father and mother were in love but married because my mother was pregnant.  A Butlins holiday romance.  They were both 18.  My father’s family all lived in Southampton. Frank and Joan.  They had married in their 20’s and almost immediately, Danny – my name for Frank, a mix of Daddy and Grandad – left as a soldier in the Second World War.  He never fought.  He was put ashore in Malaysia and spent nearly five years as a Japanese prisoner of war.  Most of his friends died in the camps working on the Changi railway.  He didn’t, he said, because he wanted to see his son, Roger, who he had never seen.  He was four and a half by the time he returned. 

He and Nanny bought a pub, had a second child, Jane, and started to work hard and do well.  By the time I was a boy, we owned one of the main hotels in the town.  Danny drove a Rolls Royce, had a piece of private salmon fishing and wanted for little.

My Dad had been sent to the local, fee paying Catholic school, St Mary’s.  At six, I went there too.

My family was married and I was baptised in the local Anglican (Church of England) church.  I had gone to the prep school in that church building before heading off to St Mary’s.

We were not religious as a family.  We didn’t attend church, but my Dad believed in God, a Christian God, and would sometimes talk about it.  Nanny would always say “God Bless” as she tucked me in and kissed me goodnight.  Religion was irrelevant and God was benign but friendly, safe and about love.

First things first – Sex and Power

There is more history to tell of why I joined the church but it’s hard to just go from A to Z without a few diversions.  On reflection, I would like to think of these stopovers as adding depth and complexity, for there is no doubt this is a complex issue with many undercurrents. But maybe I just got lost down a dead end. You can decide.

It was 1967.  I was six and I started at St Mary’s.  It was a Catholic school run by an order of Brothers, Marist I think.  My first day, I am standing at the front of the class on a raised platform, asked to read by one of the few female teachers.  I can’t read.  The class starts to laugh and I start to cry.  I only complete one book by 13 and a bunch of Wilbur Smith before 20.  School was a place where I was shown up and put down for being stupid – and I was clearly stupid.

From then on my teachers were mostly Brothers.  They wore full length black cassocks with dozens of buttons from their chins to the floor.  There was only one Brother that helped me with my work, Brother Melody, and he left to marry, it was rumoured. No one talked about it.

I was always bottom of the class, struggled with homework but never had help or a teacher that took a special interest.

Every day started with prayers and once a week we walked up the hill to the senior school for mass.  I heard the gospel every day, stories of Jesus.  I liked him.  At mass, I would sit next to my best friend, the son of Irish Catholics, Andrew O’Connor. He received the host (bread). I sat and watched.  He was going to heaven, me hell.

The thorns, the blood, the bleeding heart was frightening.  More frightening were the men in black who told the stories of Jesus, who hit me and my friends.

It was punishment, but never fair or reasoned.  Brother Edmund was out of control and so were we with him.  He got control, or tried, by indiscriminately slapping the backs of our legs.  It happened a lot.  It hurt.  The head used a cane on your bottom.  Another Brother, who had taught my Dad, used many instruments.  I remember once him hitting the whole class on the knuckles of each hand with a board pointer – a snooker cue.  It broke several times.  He didn’t stop.  Many kids screamed and cried.

But what was most talked about and most feared, was sex.  The ‘boys’ all talked about the teachers.  Some clearly interested in our mothers, some just hard.  But most feared and joked about were the gentle ones, the touchers.  I never feared it exactly.  It was just present, I didn’t remember ever being touched but it was ever present.  One teacher, during my time, was rumoured to have been accused by the police of sexually abusing students on two occasions.  At about eight to ten, I was in his office and he sat me on his lap on the chair at his big desk.  I think I was in trouble.  He was being very kind.  I remember knowing I had to get out at any cost.

At about 13, my parents moved me to a private Anglican boarding school because my results at school were so bad and to ‘toughen me up’.  I was never good at school work and continued to fail through all my schooling.  I found out recently I am dyslexic.

What was striking about this experience was, once again, a chapel, prayers and God, as well as prefects - 17 and 18 year olds who could beat, and more teachers using varied instruments, but this time an English teacher who repeatedly touched me up in my bed when tucking us in, or waking us up, or swimming with us in the swimming pool.

Amazingly, I left school hurt mostly by the sense of my own failures, not the abuse.  I believed I was stupid. But I also left having no respect for those that talked about God, not because they weren’t nice people but aware that just because they were Christian did not mean they were good people.  In fact, best check a little harder than normal.

p.s. In my thirties, at a retreat centre, the night before my ordination, the head Catholic Priest was offering massage.  I took one. He touched me up during the massage, I asked him to stop and left, I went to a sauna to sit and think, he came in naked and tried again.  I left.  After my ordination I reported him. I was interviewed by a committee. I don’t remember ever hearing what happened. 

Sadly this kind of behaviour from those within the church has been a constant.  Although we now have numerous protocols, courses and committees, the underlying issues of individuals’ lack of self esteem and their confusion about such as sex and power are ignored.

A bit more history

At 21, I left Portmouth Polytechnic after doing a Higher National Diploma in Business Studies.  It was 1983.  Mrs Thatcher had gone to war with the Argentines and Unions and won both.  My family had sold the hotel and my father was creating a publicly listed leisure business on the south coast.  It was a brave new world and the free market was giving birth to millions of rapid millionaire ‘want to bes’.

The £ or $ sign was a new shinier and brighter God.  It was mine.  I knew that if I was successful, only measurable in £’s, then I would be loved and admired by my father, family and friends.  And to be loved was important.  To date, I had only failed.  I knew this in my heart and if I wasn’t sure, my father had told me many times.  I remember one conversation in my mid twenties which went, “Don’t tell me what you are going to do, the only thing you have ever done successfully is run one marathon.”  I had to be rich.  Love depended on it.

It seemed as if things were about to change for me overnight, but actually it was the start of a three or four year journey of amazing, mysterious gifts of life and my willingness to explore them.  I started a spiritual journey. I was going to become a spiritual warrior.  I never knew this at the time, of course, and if at 23, at the height of my champagne drinking, sexual rampage as a yuppie through the clubs of London, If you’d told me this would happen I would have told you to “fuck right off’.  But it happened.

In fact, it started with a homeopath.  Alcohol, exotic sexually transmitted diseases and not enough sleep with too many different people was taking its toll.  To avoid changing behaviour, I went for some hippy, new age cure.  After my third visit, Sarah, the homeopath, remarked that when I visited her I mostly talked about my mother and that maybe my behaviours and illnesses could be related.  She invited me to attend some weird sect group therapy course thing.  I nearly hit her.  I did the course.

Personal demons:  It’s war!

In a few pages I will shave my head and be all in white after an all night vigil.  I have no shoes.  I am giving flowers away to people at the ceremony.  I am about to be confirmed as a Christian of St James’ Piccadilly in the wide arms of a great friend, the Rev. Donald Reeves.  The hands on my head that confirm me were those of Bishop Trevor Huddleston, a tireless campaigner to rid the world of apartheid in South Africa. It would be one of his last public services before his death.

I felt truly honoured, God blessed.  I think my family thought I had gone mad.  To get there had been a fight.  The sect groupie thing turned out to be a two day course developed and led by two ex Anglican priests, Brad Brown and Roy Whitten.  Both of them, but particularly Brad, I would acknowledge as saving my life and starting me on the path of becoming the person I am:  loved and loving.

The Life Training weekend (now ‘More to Life’), exposed myself to me in a room with 100 people – I never felt alone.  Others’ stories made sense of mine.  In my resistance to look at myself, I helped and was helped by others to gently, painfully and shockingly unravel the knotted ball I had become.

I learnt that I always tried to please people, or at least not upset them. It is a game that I had put in place with my mum to serve her and make her happy.  I had set that game in concrete by demanding not only that I pleased but also that I was successful to avoid Dad’s disappointment and win his love.  And to achieve being loved by pleasing and being successful given my belief that I was a failure, the gift from school, had kept me running in circles.  I also realised I lied about most things, most of the time, a technique to convince people that I was good enough, something I clearly did not believe.  I left the course knowing these things but having no idea who I would be without them or what I wanted to do instead.

The day after the course I gave up smoking and vowed not to drink for a year.  I didn’t.  I did other courses.  I started to lead.  I got massages and I started to feel my body.  I argued and stopped talking to Mum and tried different conversations with Dad.  Success looked different.  It was not so much about approval.  I was most interested in finding out who I was and what I would become.  I gave up work and travelled - three months as crew on a 100 foot yacht in the Mediterranean and then seven months travelling across Africa.

I saw wars, people die.  I realised that I was racist, that I had believed black people were stupid.  I was sexist.  I had never had female friends, just sexual partners.  The African women challenged all my ‘isms’.  They were inspirational.

I returned aware of the love in the world – and the pain.  I had met individuals with stories, of different colours, faiths and ideas – some that I liked, some I didn’t – all trying their best to make sense of their lives.  I was inspired.  I took a job as a stockbroker by day (if I was going to be a nicer person – I might as well be a rich nice person) and at night I helped out at a shelter for homeless people in a church just off Piccadilly Circus, St James’.

My world was about to collapse.  It’s hard serving two Gods.  All the stories of Jesus that I had heard as a kid were helping me make sense of the world.  A strong man who is gentle, who stands in front of the woman who is about to be stoned and challenges the men with words,  who says to find yourself, mother will be against daughter, father against son.  I was realising that to be me would not please everybody.

Paul’s words of “tell the truth, it will set you free” were a daily challenge.  And I was finding Jesus’ challenge about “giving all that is Caesar’s to Caesar”, with reference to money, a choice that I would need to make.

I went to work one morning. The company had traded in a bankrupt company’s stock illegally. I received a phone call from a man who had gambled all his savings on that company after a very rigorous sales pitch from one of my colleagues.  Nobody cared.  He was in tears.  I was disgusted.  I challenged my bosses.  They told me to forget about it and get back to work.  I left.  I went to the fraud squad at the Department of Trade and Industry and was interviewed.  The company was later closed.  I phoned my Dad to tell him.  He couldn’t believe I had gone to the police and resigned.  I told him it was him that had taught me about stealing.  He said this was different, “It was the way of the world.”  He told me to start any business I liked and he would pay to get it off the ground.  I just needed to get back into “the profit motive”.  I was lost.  I wanted love and understanding, I got little.  Thatcher’s brave new world – the free market – had a high price.

I had failed, again.  I didn’t know what to do.  I went home to my flat in Battersea, closed the door and cried for days.  I spent two weeks thinking about my life.  My life was too confusing: on one side, I had a comfortable life where the rules were clear, everybody had their place and role and I had mine.  The only problem was that I was lonely, lost and rarely happy.  On the other side, was a new game with very few rules, where there was an adventure into who I was and where I often felt happy an even relaxed.  The trouble was it was at times frightening and unknown, full of choices to make about everything and where the players in the old game were often cross at me for shaking up their status quo.

In my depression, the only thing I did during those two weeks was walk my dog.  When I got to the park, I would sit on the same bench and listen to a voice inside my head.  I thought it was the voice of Jesus.  It was strong and clear, full of love and understood my fear.  It would tell me what to do – shopping, laundry, then to get a job as a waiter.  On reflection, I think it was the voice of Jesus I had heard every day in school.  It was my subconscious response to my thoughts of giving up and taking my own life because everything seemed too hard.  It was this voice that sent me back to St James’.

It was Sunday. I sat on the end of a pew near the aisle.  I was at my lowest point.  I had heard Donald give inspirational sermons. I had come for that but this had not been one of them.

At the end of the service, while processing down the aisle, organ blazing, singing, altar boys, choir, the whole tribe of angel look-alikes, Donald stops next to me, bends down and asks if I need to talk to someone.  I remember wanting to say no, for fear that if he said come next Thursday, I would be dead by then.  I said yes.  He said he would just finish, take off his robes and he would be there.

Half an hour later, I started to cry in his office and I was there many days and weeks until it had all been said.  He just listened, understood, never judged and in his funny, very English manner, he loved me, unconditionally.

Within those next few weeks, I made my choice.  I was going to become a disciple of Jesus -  not because I believed in God, not because Mary was a virgin or that Jesus was the son of God.  My discipleship was to find the Nic who could love and be loved just for who he was.  I was going to do it as a Christian because I liked the man Jesus.  He knew about risking your life for love and because my life had been gifted by three gracious men, all Anglican Priests, I wanted to do that for others. 

I was going to become a Priest.

Training and the evangelists

In the Anglican Church, there are three main groups:  the Evangelicals, Catholics and Liberals. Most Christian groups have similar divisions.

The Catholics in the Anglican Church are obsessed with ritual – the dressing up, incenses, candles, statues, icons and a whole bunch of silly rules during the service, as well as a strong commitment to be part of there local community.  Because of all the dress up options and long flowing cassocks and robes, combined with caring for the community around the church, this group has attracted a large percentage of gay men.

I like this group.  They are often funny, well connected to the community, politically left of centre and really know how to eat and drink well. These are the guys to party with.  This is where I did my training.  Oh and they definitely believe Mary was a virgin!

The Liberals are more serious.  Intellectually, they have worked out that the Jesus thing is a story, that there are many other stories and that tolerance and respect for those stories is essential.  Many Liberals hang out in or with the ‘Catholic’ groups because they share respect for each other and the ability to enjoy good food and wine.  I’ve always been associated with these churches – St James’ was a perfect example.  This group are the smallest but align with the Catholics and do all the politics.

Given they know the story is a story, I can’t understand how they keep saying all the words that make the story true.  These guys mostly stay in their heads and a long way from their feelings – it can be all a bit wanky.  The best of these, and whose writing has been an inspiration and a reason for me to stay in the church, is Bishop Jack Spong.

The Evangelicals.  It is not as easy to draw huge generalizations with this group without being very judgemental so I will try a few stories.

There have been a couple of inspiring evangelical ministers in my life:  Neville Black and Bishop David Sheppard.  They believe the story and are passionate about it.  They are not simple but they choose to simply believe.

After getting confirmed, I left London and moved to Liverpool under the guidance of Neville. He helped me to be useful and to make friends.  When I wanted to leave because I didn’t believe the creed – that bit that goes “I believe in…..”, he said to me – in his north of England straight shooting style – “Nic, the church is like a bucket of shit with a few pearls in it.  It’s worth staying for the pearls.”

Similarly, the night before my ordination, in my interview with Bishop David (after I had been running from the over friendly priest) I told him that I was very liberal in my thinking and that if a Muslim came into my church in search of help or guidance, I would sit with them and their Koran to see if we could find help from their great prophet.  David smiled and said he wished I didn’t always put him in difficult positions and said he would ordain me in the church “for my commitment to love, not the church.”

But these men are exceptions.  The Evangelical movement has become fundamentalist.  It uses the Bible as if it were true to frighten people and wield power.  It uses the words of love in a way I find disgusting.  They call their words of fear ‘gospel’ and pick through the truth like magpies, searching for the shiny piece of information that will make them right, to put down gays, Jews, Muslims, keep women in their place and most importantly, the minister or pastor in his – and it’s always his!

During my training there was a small group of evangelicals that would continually pray for me that I might find Jesus Christ and receive his redeeming love. In one lecture on Mary, I asked if anyone really believed she was a virgin?  The little clan of fundamentalists started their praying, or rather mumbling in tongues and afterwards the principal of the college who was leading the lecture, another ‘evangelical’, took me to his office and told me that if I continued to ‘de-church’ him and my fellow students, I would not be welcome.  On one occasion, when one of the team of prayers told me he would continue to pray that I would find God  I suggested he stick his prayers up his arse. I had had enough of their arrogance, self righteousness and condescension.

Here in Samoa, where I am writing this book, there are hundreds of little evangelical sects.  Every small community has its Church and Pastor.  Pastors are some of the wealthiest on the island.  In some Churches, they read out the congregation’s names and how much they gave last week.  In a country of real poverty, the Church is rich and often extorting money through fear of Hell, fear of God, to line the pockets of its clergy and to build its temples.

It is understandable how strong a hold this tribal religion has in a country with less formal education.  What is amazing is that throughout the US, Europe, Africa, Asia and in Australia, it is the most politically strong and best organised. It is willing to use its ‘gospel’ to put down all opponents within.  The Sydney diocese in Australia is a perfect example of this kind of religion at its most organised and frightening.

So my training was dominated by this thinking.  Fundamentalists were less than a third of the course, but the belief that they are right, and therefore the righteousness that is used to forcefully put down differing views, combined with the wishy washy nice Christians on the Catholic/liberal side that will not fight in public - for that is not polite, but will gossip over dinner – means this was the dominant culture and therefore framed what was ‘acceptable’ behaviour and thought.

I hated it in my training.  I have got better over time at naming it publicly but, ultimately, it is the culture that I am completely unwilling to be associated with any longer.

But that is the end point and there is no more to say before drawing to that conclusion.

More Sex and Power

People in the Church get most confused about sex and power.

The Anglican Church spends an inordinate amount of time debating the place and role of women and gay people (particularly gay men for it’s where their penis is going that is the big fear and for many the secret turn on!)  The only more excitable debate, and one that brings out all the political mud slinging, is choosing Archbishops.

These debates are harsh and personal.  During my training we had a whole weekend focused on sexuality.  I know that in my year of 30 people, at least 6 were gay.  It was never spoken by those who knew publicly, for to name it would mean seriously jeopardising the person’s chance of getting ordained, particularly if they were in a practising homosexual relationship.  During the weekend, the debate was dominated by evangelicals quoting scripture and then using that as a platform to explain how morally wrong someone was to be in that position.  The gay people said nothing.  There was some intellectual argument about scripture (if you want to read this argument being taken apart, Spong is great).  I sat there wondering how it would feel to be gay in that room, in our Church, and then I remembered I had had a few flirtations with gay relationships and so announced to the room that I had done the things they were talking about, that I was not sorry about them at all and that people should look me in the eyes and tell me I was going to hell.

The debate improved.  People were more real, less personal and a lot less black and white.  The prayer team started mumbling for my soul and one did kindly point out that if I, or anyone like me, chose Jesus as their Lord and saviour and renounced these sins, they would be saved. 
I didn’t say this then, but for the record now, I think this is an infantile position that refuses to engage with any complexity of life and pushes all complexity out and makes it wrong.  What is so sad is it claims the word of God as the justification for this and similar positions and alienates the many people who have psychologically moved on from that childish need of black and white from ever seriously engaging with the Church.  Sadly, and in the absence of a Church taking people’s spiritual journey seriously, many give up on the public exploration of their spirituality and love. 

Later, two of the group thanked me for my actions and we spent the evening talking.  I listened to them tell the stories of lies that they believed they needed to live to stay within the church.  How can anyone placed in this situation be free to minister the word of love.  Certainly telling the truth would set them free from the church.

It is the fundamentalists from every faith that have de-churched society.  They have captured the high ground of love and left a secular world without a meeting place for the serious exploration of love and how we are going to live together in this complex world.  The majority who have left that public journey make do without it, but the world is then smaller; it becomes about how I as an individual survive and that becomes about personal security and power, about money and about looking out for number one.

What is ironic is that for many that individual society that we now live in is not enough. It can seem that the only choice is Church so people suppress their intellect, give up the bigger dreams and join the local Church club.  It’s not great but it’s better than nothing. And if they can suppress their intellect completely for at least one day a week, they can join an Evangelical Church, with energy, growing numbers, upbeat music, upwardly mobile friends and probably a bit of charity work.

This works for many and our global leaders love it. There is nothing like a few black and white issues and god on your side to secure votes.

Charity

From the time I left London to move to Liverpool in 1988 up until two years ago (2004), I worked in ‘charity’.  It started with a drop in centre for prostitutes from 10pm to 2am at St Bride’s Church, Liverpool.  I loved it – hard, real and sad stories.  I met women who had been as desperate as I had only months before.  I never judged, I often cried and I made tea and coffee. 

I then started a charity that collected and distributed second hand furniture.  The Furniture Resource Centre (FRC).  From there I worked for two other charities, Christian Aid and the Brotherhood of St Lawrence, in Australia.  I worked for charities as a place to organisationally give love, ‘charity’.  These are three stories to illuminate three things I learnt about charity:

(1)  The first meeting I held to form the Furniture Resource Centre went very well.  Everyone listened, was encouraging and so I formed the company and closed the meeting.  I thought I had finished when an elderly woman (maybe in her eighties) said “Excuse me young man?”.  It had a hint of authority that meant we weren’t finished.  We all sat down.  She continued: “I am sure you will do great things.  You are very eager and excited but I would like you to remember one thing.  For every one person you are lucky enough to help, there will be another one hundred in a similar situation who will not get your help.  How will you be sure that the work you do for the one you see will also help those you don’t?”

A big thought that still has its challenges for me today.

This point is who is the charity for if it does not change the institutional nature of disadvantage. Many charity workers, volunteers, church-goers who hold right wing political views will not do charity if it has a political bias. There is nothing Jesus likes about this type of charity.

(2)  After three years at FRC, I left to work for one of the UK’s leading aid agencies, Christian Aid.  At FRC, we had been collecting people’s rubbish furniture and giving it to the poorest in our community.  The ‘poor’ needed it but they knew they were poor when they got it.  The rich gave their old or soiled goods to the poor rather than the bin and got to feel good.  Charity:  the love of God?

At Christian Aid, it was cleaner and one step removed.  The poor in the donor country can be overlooked because real poverty is starving and black.  Now I don’t give my rubbish, just my spare change and in return I get to avoid looking at how my political choices and lack of real action impact upon third world countries.  The poor get little of the aid and nothing fundamental changes.  They are still starving in Ethiopia. This truth was brought home to me by a woman called Maria Eilena from Guatemala.  I was collecting her from Liverpool train station to take her on a talking tour of some of the richer areas of the north west of England to help us raise money for hers and other projects.  At some point in our travels, she started to cry and explained that everywhere in England was so rich and tidy and friendly, and therefore, as much as she was proud of her work, she was obviously failing for they were still poor and disorganised.

I changed the tour to include time at my house and a visit to the community I had been working in for the last three years.  She was shocked at the poverty.  At her next talk, she said to our rich donors that they should give their money to their neighbours, who although their material poverty was different, were living alone, frightened and without friends.  She said in her community, everything was shared.  No one was alone.  They were rich in love and that she felt she should go back and raise money for the poor in the UK.

I left Christian Aid; I returned to the FRC and vowed to do it differently - no more begging, no more appeasing the rich (assuaging the rich of their guilt), no more feeling good about the one.  It was time to do something about the hundred.  I was beginning to see how charity was part of the problem, not always the answer.

I spent five years making economic arguments for change and using the market to force those changes.  We had some real successes, enough that when I moved to Australia with Philippa, my wife, and our son Charlie, I was invited to be Executive Director of one of Australia’s leading social policy and welfare organisation, the Brotherhood of St Laurence (BSL).

(3)  BSL, as one of the Australian leading social policy charities was great at learning from the one and using that to influence conditions for the hundred.  It was a major part of the appeal for me of taking the role.  They also had a reputation of speaking out, even if it cost them donations or favours.

At BSL, I learnt many things.  One was certainly how hard it is to change a culture of a large, well established organisation and that I was not well placed to lead slow and stable change.  It was a lesson that was painful for many, including me.  I took away two major conclusions from the experience at BSL. 

The first had been embedded in Liverpool but was underlined in importance over those five years at BSL.   Poor people do not want ‘charity’.  I don’t mean love here.  They don’t want people helping to feed, house, educate or care for their loved ones or themselves.  They want rights.  They don’t want to beg and mostly they want the ability to access goods and services like the majority of us.  They want a job.  There are many times in people’s lives, child birth or care, sickness and old age, when they want rights to quality goods and services, but mostly they want to be part of something/doing something with others that earns them money and respect and creates opportunities for friendship and love.

There are many that argue that the unemployed are lazy and don’t want a job.  Superficially, this is sometimes true but scratch the surface of someone in this position and you will often find a lot of fear of failure and rejection.  With charity, a compassionate heart that sees the best in people, you can often get people through this fear and they become loyal and productive employees. At the Brotherhood, I wanted to shift our culture from welfare rights to a stronger emphasis on employment opportunities.  We had a few successes.

The second big lesson, and very related to the difficulty I had in shifting our focus from welfare/charity to jobs, was the culture running through welfare in Australia, which is similar to that of the UK.  People who have chosen a career in charity believe that to be more honourable than working in government, or particularly, industry.  To uphold this position, business and government are blamed for many of the problems and so ‘charity’ workers feel better, superior and righteous.

But the attitudes create many problems and ultimately leaves those of us in charity needing poor people or a damaged environment to feel good about ourselves.  We also don’t support individuals to change their situation because we are blaming the systems.  We don’t work with business and government to create jobs and opportunities because we are blaming them and, therefore, we become a significant barrier to change.  Our charity is good for us, no longer selfless and a major obstacle to real solutions.

Of course this is not every person and every organisation but it is the prevalent culture - and has come directly from Church.  Time and time again, I visit parishes where the average value of a parishioner’s house is a million dollars.  There are 50 to 100 people present and there will be half a dozen tins of soup in a basket for the poor and needy.  Charity indeed – but little love.

Abuse in schools

It is the services of baptisms, weddings and funerals, along with the Eucharist service that I want to be at the heart of my explanation for why I am leaving. For it is in the words that I have to say and I find I no longer believe most of them writing this letter.  I will give one chapter to each and then conclude. But if the context is how we are as a church, together that is, really the problem the words, liturgy, customs are the wrapping that holds it together.

However, before I start, I wish to name my greatest concern in the Church. It seems benign but I think it is potentially extremely damaging to the most vulnerable in our society.

It is not sexual abuse, for this is not benign or accepted, however broadly practiced and damaging.  It is the teaching of fundamentalist Christianity in schools. 

I wonder if already in your head you can hear the voice that says, “Poor dear Nic has gone off his trolley.”  Surely, most governments and much of society want good Christian values taught in their schools.

Well firstly, you can teach good values and reference them to most religions.  But the point is not about Christian values but fundamentalist Christianity – “Join us or go to hell!”  On a church camp, I heard one of the leaders ask how many of the children’s parents believed in Jesus as their saviour?  Were “true Christians?”  If they were not, the leader explained, their parents would go to hell.

While preaching at a Church in my role at BSL, Charlie my four year old son, visited the Sunday school.  For some time, he was frightened by the story he had heard of John the Baptist’s head being cut off and put in a bag and that he had to be good.  I wanted to go back and punch somebody’s lights out.

But in these cases, the parents – I think misguidedly – have put their children in these places for ‘religious values’ or reasons.  More abusive - for I believe it is abuse - is that of children who are sent to evangelical/fundamentalist schools that are well placed in established society and have a reputation for strong academic results (often Anglican but I would include some aspects of teaching that I witnessed at a Scotch College and some Catholic schools in Melbourne and the like in UK and the US – in truth, there are schools like this in every large city around the world) because the parents want the good education but have little or no commitment to the religion.  This is certainly a position I have witnessed repeatedly and was in myself.  If the religion that they are being taught at school has any element of leaving the child having to choose between the fear of the love of God, the heaven and hell scenario, the school religion or feel that they need to convert to save their parents or to choose between parental loyalty they are being placed in a psychological position that is likely to be damaging, possibly extremely so.

Not only do I not believe such schools should not receive any government funding, but there should be stringent guidelines and controls to differentiate between religious education as opposed to religious positioning and proselytising.

PS:  The matter of governments funding religious organisations to undertake state or federal delivery of essential services must be safeguarded against those organisations using their belief system to force those beliefs on people through the service delivery.

A simple example of this misuse of public funds would be when my wife Philippa feared she was miscarrying our second child.  On the visit to the doctor at the Mercy Hospital, he said that he thought she had miscarried but it was only a few weeks and we should check again next week.  Philippa is a Doctor of Psychology and I was leading the Brotherhood. He quietly suggested that we move that next visit at the Women’s Hospital for he was unable to offer a D & C (dilation and curette) to the Mercy because of their position on abortion and it was in her best health interest to get that done (to not offer this as a standard operation after miscarriage can create severe complications).  If she had been Vietnamese, English as her second language and poor, would he have had the same conversation?  Does the Mercy’s position on abortion impact on its services to women – are they getting all the choices and intervention they are entitled to in that public system?  If not, that should be very clear to all patients and they should not be funded as a public hospital in those areas where discrepancies appear.  Health and welfare services are littered with such abuses of the public purse and a general investigation should be regularly undertaken.

Time to make a stand

But this, all this, this is not why I leave.  It is the context of my membership, of my license, but my reasons are more simple, more subtle, not about abuse, power or sexual misconduct.  Sadly you can find these issues in most places of our society. It is that I believe the mass of ‘good’ Christians, turning up on Sunday and going through the motions is the problem.  I have been a Priest over the last ten years to these people, it is in our name that we allow the church to continue these abuses and we say little or nothing. We remain silent in the name of unity and inclusion.

We have been giving authority to the ‘Word of God’ that is being abused by those less educated or psychologically immature.  We say the words we do not believe and we make excuses for not changing them, for not growing up.  When you follow me, daughter will be against mother, son against father, is what we fear.  Rejection, loneliness, exclusion from the club, losing love.  So we have not been honest, not changed, not included women, embraced gay people, explored our spirituality with other faiths and of no faith at anywhere near the level that is necessary for us to be  truthful and relevant.  We have allowed the most narrow-minded of our club to dominate and we have done little.  I am not blaming the fundamentalists; they are narrow-minded and fearful.  It is the fault of those of us who know our religion needs to change and have not spoken up, changed, chosen new leadership. Our fear is primal and powerful, completely understandable.  It’s just not good enough!

Jesus is not the problem.  It’s what we have placed on his head and shoulders.  From Paul onwards.  We made a great man of love a God so we could not be like him, not have to try.  We crucified him, had him die for our sins and we have sat back and gone to Church for a few hours, maybe done some ‘charity’ and then allowed ourselves to believe that is enough.  We are not challenged or changing.  We are comfortable and anything but spiritually driven to take actions that create or build love.  We do not tell the truth and we rarely experience the freedom it would bring.  We either use the fundamentals of the religion to separate ourselves and make ourselves holier and better than our neighbour or we are comfortably going through the motions, having moments of peace and spirituality but not allowing our faith to guide our whole lives. Either way we use this faith to judge others either inside the club or out.

For this reason, there are those four beautiful rituals that I can no longer do with integrity, partly because of the intellectual gymnastics that I have to go through with most of the words.  And so, every little lie I tell in the services I take part in now reminds me of my fear of making a stand and then being rejected, reminds me I am part of the abuse.  I no longer believe as truth in a particular God, if any, I certainly do not believe that Jesus was any more or less human than you or I, and as for Mary’s virginity, her and Joseph have interesting stories I am sure.

Jesus points to how to be loving. We could use these stories and how others interpreted them, along with other faith stories and our amazing psychological and sociological knowledge to create news ways, as a development of a Christian belief system, to learn, share, practise and celebrate our humanity and our commitment to making it more loving.

I also can no longer say the words because I believe they set up a dynamic in our lives that actively works against us being honest, being actually in the moment and not judging others.  They are more of the problem than they are the answer.  I will miss doing them.

Baptism

As I have said, for me there are four great opportunities and privileges to landing groups of people when you are a priest: baptisms, weddings, funerals and celebrating communion.  Helping people make sense of these occasions and sharing in their excitement and fears, tears and laughter is nearly always humbling and life giving.  It is what I will miss most if I resign my license but it is what I find most difficult to continue in integrity.  Integrity with those who come to these services, as well as my integrity with the church, for I am pushing the boundaries by changing meanings and words to be more inclusive.

Let me take Baptism as an example.

27 June 1995, I was ordained Priest.  I walked away from the service down the aisle carrying a six month old baby, Charlie, in my hands.  We went to the church where I was curate, St Columbus, and I preached and celebrated communion for the first time.  During the service, Charlie was baptised.  We had changed many of the words, mostly because I don’t believe them or the intention behind them, and partly because one of his godfathers, Quentin, wasn’t Christian and followed a small eastern religion/movement.

I preached for too long.  I wanted to make sense of why I had joined this church to family and friends who had little connection to it or what it did.  It was too long because I couldn’t make that sense. Instead I should have just said thankyou for your love and support that has led me to do this work, and then sat down! 

I had joined because some good people had given me a place to breathe, grow and make sense of my life.  I was full of gratitude and wanted others to have it, to do that.  I was going to change the church; burn it down; take out the stained glass and let in the light, take the doors off and let the air rush through bringing with it laughter, tears, life! 

It was a naïve dream.

And the baptism service would remind me every time I did one that there was joy, new life, expectant family and friends all with dreams and hopes.  But also that they came to the christening on the way to the party – the real celebration.  They listened to words irrelevant to their lives about Satan and the devil, heaven and hell, making commitments to follow Christ.  Nonsense with no meaning.  They came as if it was a bit of voodoo.  To not do it was risky.  Going through the motions was good insurance.

By doing it, by using those old words that most no longer believe, that are only defensible by disengaging one’s intellect to hold on to the club membership, we make ourselves (the church?) irrelevant.  And they rightly do not return until the next baptism or in a coffin.  We took the opportunity of real engagement, to talk about life, and love and turned it into a farce.  It is sacrilegious.

For years now I have tried to cheat, change the words, grapple to make sense, but it’s dishonest.  It’s dishonest because while I may be able to do the intellectual and spiritual back flips necessary to make sense of it, most cannot and I will not be a part of not engaging truthfully with people, where they are at, for the sake of a minority’s need for “the one true path”, and the fear of Satan to attract others to their small minded ways.  For the love of God, why do we do this?

Marriage

Taking marriages is so much fun.  Full of hope and dreams of a bright future.  Of futures not alone but shared with someone you want to die with.  How cool is that!

But marriage is tough and these days, likely to end before “death do us part”.  Mine is one of these…

The “God” language in the marriage service is by far the easiest to say.  It’s poetic and flows well.  The reference to love is strong and the familiarity of those phrases “with this ring….”, and “to love and honour till death do us part…” are guaranteed to bring tears to our eyes.

When couples come for marriage we on the whole are excited and want them to do it.  We want them to use the Church and include God.  We believe in the vows and we want them to be true and therefore do not always take the time to help the couple think through why they are making the choice.

It has been my separation from Philippa that has really forced me to re evaluate the value of the “death do us part” commitment, or even to marriage itself as we currently construct it.

You see, I promised to stay married to Philippa until death do us part because those were the words.  But my commitment, I believe, our commitment was deeper than that.  It was a promise to love, honour and respect each other and to not give up on that.  Two things happened.  Firstly, and the most significant is we stopped loving, honouring and respecting each other.  We stopped telling each other the truth.  Maybe in our fears we couldn’t see it.  We got professional help and counselling for several years but we never recovered our truth.  We still haven’t.  It’s still too painful or frightening to go there together.

Partly we didn’t because of the second reason.  We became different people who no longer shared as much desire to live life in a similar way.  When we married, I was 28.  I didn’t know I was going to change, and that Philippa was going to change, and that might be in different ways, and that those changes might change how we, I, wanted to be with each other.

In the ‘old days’ we would have stuck it out, knuckled down and wanted to see if it changed again, or we just got used to it.  I couldn’t.  I was getting depressed and my depression/fears were no longer confined to just Philippa but were starting to impact on my relationship with our kids.  I left.

So here is the big sadness for me. It was the vows we took that set us up to believe we had failed.  Philippa, some family and some friends do not see 16 years of love, an amazing journey of growth and two beautiful children.  They see failured, broken and hurt people.  This of course is not all the church’s fault but to break a marriage is a ‘mortal sin’.  We failed.  The church set this up the framework for these judgements, and it has, and is, a serious obstacle to Philippa and I moving forward.

I will not be doing this again, with those words, to anyone else or to myself.  It does not help.

A young friend recently married and in their celebration service they used these words;  “In this moment you are my forever” and then committed to how they make forever every day.

If we are to encourage this kind of commitment we have to offer structures and a ceremony that is very real. Not set up the fairytale that ends in tears.

Death

Being dead is a big issue for the living!

When someone dies who is close to us, or in a way that personally touches us, it raises questions, reflections and emotions; fear, loss, regret, resentment, trauma, anger, sadness, relief.  It can be an emotional roller coaster.

It is a time when I think a priest can be very helpful to individuals and the families and group concerned with the death.  But what I think is helpful is very different from my fundamentalist colleagues.

I think at an individual level, you can be available to listen to people’s questioning, join them in their loss or sadness, help work through the regrets or fears.  When they want to know what happens to the person who died, you can give them the space to articulate what they think.

If pushed for an answer, I always say I don’t know, but that their love, life contribution is continued or dies depending on what others do with that.  My Grandfather is with me in most of my thinking and decision making.  His love upholds me and he is an important part of my life today.  He actually died over 20 years ago.  He loved me and lives in me.

For the group, or at the funeral, the role is different. I think my role is to hold a very fragile space for all the people to have their different stories and emotions and to support the group as a whole to move through this experience, to experience letting go or ‘closure’ and to have a sense of the new possibilities for themselves in the light of this loss.

It can be very complex.  I have done funerals where for different people, the dead person represented parent, abuser, drunk, friend, establishment figure and distant sibling, similarly, where mourners were of different faiths and evangelical about them, no faith, new age and no interest.  Honouring the whole group and supporting a healthy transition through this loss, I find challenging and a huge privilege.  I will miss it.

And I will miss it partly because it was at a recent funeral of a friend that I once again realised how much at odds I am with some of the members of my church.

A good friend in England phoned me to ask if I would take the funeral of his father.  Werner, Peter’s Dad, was a lovely gentle man that I had met on a few occasions.  A German Jew who as a very young man spent the Second World War in a British prison camp, he lost his parents to Auschwitz, and his older sister is one of the few remaining survivors of that terrible place.

During his time in England, he converted to Christianity, later went to theological college and became a Priest.  He struggled with, and wrote about, the importance of allowing our faith to evolve but in some ways, like me, he could not find the willingness of the Church to evolve and he left, moved to Australia and taught sociology at a university here in Melbourne.  He travelled through two major religions but in the end, left to be a priest in a classroom and later, the leader/convener of a book and poetry group.

He was to be buried in the town where he had spent the last ten years—Healesville.  I received a phone call in the week before from the priest of his church.  He wanted to speak to me before he made his decision to let the funeral go ahead.

He was concerned, given Werner’s history and my reputation that the service would not be Christian enough, Anglican enough.  It would have been an interesting conversation if it had not been so tragic at the same time.  He wanted to know if I would be using bible readings?  Would there be prayers?  Would I be stating clearly the redeeming love of Jesus Christ as ‘saviour’?  “And if I didn’t?” I asked, would he not allow a practising Anglican priest bury a retired Anglican priest at his church? “Maybe not”, he replied.

I advised him that although I did not share his theological beliefs there would be at least one bible reading and I would use all the set words in the prayer book.  He said he could cope with that.  I said no more but I knew I no longer wanted to be in a club that treated present and past members with such arrogance and lack of graciousness.

Communion

It is hard to imagine not taking communion.  I find myself waiting to celebrate at most meal times as I sit with friends or work mates.  I am always excited as I leave home to take Sunday service at St Stephen’s.

It is not the preaching, although I love the discipline of preparing a sermon; everything I encounter that week is observed for the signs of mystery that make sense of our lives together on this fragile earth.  And by the time I am ready to stand in front of the congregation, having said the blessings, “may my thoughts, words and heart be moved by the love of God,” I have little idea what I will say.  I love that anticipation.  I am often surprised by my own challenge, my honesty, my rudeness, laughter or tears.  I love it, but this is not what has captivated and drawn me to this service.

It is not the people, although I love many of them and look forward to seeing them.  They, on the whole, will enjoy my words, some being moved, a few thinking them trite or irreverent (I don’t mind the irreverent at all!) but generally warm and are grateful for my engagement and presence.  We are a church like many; nice people going through the motions.  This does not mean I scorn it, judge it or do not recognise its value but it’s not enough for my journey and it is not the reason I get out of bed.

It certainly is not the praying, although the meditation we start with is always lovely.  The prayers generally in most Christian churches sound like a list of people and words that are asking some Almighty higher being to watch over, or even correct, the events of our lives.  There is no stillness. The list means little to most people and unlike the in meditation, we do not slow down, breathe and open ourselves to love.  Mostly we switch off or more worryingly, get involved in asking the Big Fellow to do his tricks.

Prayer can be a place of honesty, reflection, forgiveness, renewal and love: but it is mostly the excuse for inaction, and avoidance. It undermines ours and others’ responsibilities and allows us to be helpless.  It is this as much as anything that I dislike about church services.

It’s not the church building, it’s bloody cold, dark and falling down, but it feels like home.  It certainly isn’t the coffee we serve after the service, although I enjoy the friends around our cups of flavoured hot water.  And it is not the silly dress ups, although that can be fun sometimes!

And it is not the words of communion, for I believe none, or at least few of them.

But it is communion I come for; to stand in robes at the altar, in that spiritual place, steeped in the history of a people searching for and talking of love.  After hearing readings, being silent, risking my vulnerability and telling my truth, to open my arms and start that familiar liturgy; to smell the wine, to hear the crack of bread as it is broken; to look into the eyes of every person, full of love, offering them the bread of heaven. To lay my hands on children and bless them with love.  To do that sometimes with either Holly or Charlie at my side or helping.  To feel, corporately and publicly, that much love is one of the greatest gifts of my life.  I cannot imagine life not doing it.

I will find other ways, new, relevant, truthful, honest ways to celebrate but I do not expect to be able to so simply, easily access such grace and splendour.  It is a gift from God!

Next Steps

My next steps as a priest will be shaky.  I will miss the security of the church.  But much of that security has become the trap that has limited my ability to love others as a priest in the way I wish to.  Even things like the title. I was Father Nic at the Brotherhood and the name supported the dysfunctional behaviour I had wanted to change.  I rarely use the ‘Rev.’ title any longer and never wear a dog collar as it associates me with a church that is increasingly known for its infantile thinking and bad behaviour towards gay people and those of no faith and other faiths, and its abusive behaviour towards women and children.

What is striking as I face this decision is noticing how many of the most influential priests in my life have either left or are forced to the periphery of the church and not taken seriously.

Donald Reeves who at St James’ Piccadilly, created a vibrant church that welcomed those of no faith and others to come and enjoy fellowship and learning, good food and friendship, shelter and care for all, was never acknowledged within the church for his insight and wisdom.  He now works independently of the church, as a priest, in the organisation he founded, “Soul of Europe”.   He and his partner Peter are helping to resolve resentment between the communities, mostly Muslims, in the former Yugoslavia.

Another great friend and supporter who has been alongside me in my journey since I arrived in Australia is Peter Thomson.  Peter has challenged and mentored some extraordinary people, not least Tony Blair and in Australia Geoff Gallup, in his life as Priest and teacher.  He was also one of the early thinkers about the role of the church and local enterprise in poorer communities.  Through his later work in England he has probably visited some of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs, leading global thinkers and theologians.  I offered him a job as Chaplain at the Brotherhood when he returned home—a position that he still holds. But he has never been acknowledged or engaged by the church for his leadership and remains on the periphery.

Bishop, you remain inside and I know you have much more classical beliefs than I do, but like all those that have inspired me, you reach out with open arms to all.  I have also been supported by some other amazing people since I have been in Australia, Rev. Ken Parker, John Wilson and Cheryl Holmes particularly.

Thank you.  It is rare in our church and I am grateful for the work you do.  May God Bless you.

For me, I am a priest at work.  I lead a business that is committed to doing something about the most serious global issue we will face in the coming years, global warming.  I take responsibility for a culture that is open and honest, trusting and generous.  With our staff and those we serve or work with, it is hugely challenging and rewarding.

I don’t know how I will break bread with others.  I will still be inspired by the life of Jesus of Nazareth, a Jew that operated outside his faith rules, to once again lead me to be the priest that I believe I am called to be.  Hopefully there will be renegade congregations of any faith, tribe, club or affiliation that will still invite me to celebrate.  I hope so.

Lastly, I would like to remain an active priest, but only in a church that has let go of its fundamentalism and is truly searching to be inclusive.  I hope this letter is part of the pressure, even if only slight, that supports this move.  For the Anglican Church that means splitting.  I would be honoured to return to build the bit that wants women bishops, gay partnerships acknowledged and is looking for new words to honour its history but to be contemporary and part of our current society with all its ups and downs.

Thankyou for your love.  I too, love you.

Nic.

Postscript

I can’t remember now what was said. I now have only my story, its impact on me, my gospel.  What God meant for me at that time. Not real except to me, there is his experience as well, some bits will be similar, most meanings different.  Something happened, there was an event, but no objective record, never could have been so all that is left is a story of love.  This is the story of the lunch with the Bishop that was all about love.

We had put the lunch off a few times, things had been very busy for me – I had given him the transcript in September 2006.  I thought we would have met, I would have resigned, and it would be over by now.

But it was late January 2007, and I had moved lunch back half an hour – I was running late.  I had called and said 15-20 minutes, he said not to rush and he would see me in half an hour and I should just call when I was near and he would come down to meet me.  The Bishop, Phillip, seems to always be caring for me and probably many others, such a gentle man to me.

It is funny that to somebody he is probably a pain in the arse, the world is a like that, the only thing that is, is what you see, and that’s different to others.  So maybe nothing is, everything is just what you make it.  Still, back to my story.

I park, phone and wait in the lobby of the cathedral.  I worked there for 8 months, a loveless place.  I tried, but was glad to leave.  Since I left they had put locks on doors, swipe cards and new glass wall separators.  All necessary precautions against the angry poor.  The receptionist was busy and sadly could not say hi.  Now I know why he said call.  It had the feel of an old bank with no service.

We walked to one of the Melbourne Laneways, disappeared into a little restaurant, sat on a mezzanine floor, in the quiet, with a waiter who didn’t speak our language but who smiled in an atmosphere not dissimilar to the cathedral we have both worshipped in.

The conversation was one responding to the words in my letter, and they were, all about love.  But the memory was more that they, the words, were said in love.  I don’t remember the sequence; I do remember the wine, the tuna salad, the goodbye to the waiter, and a hug as we separated back at the cathedral door.

And what was said? Something like; Nic why are you wanting to leave, it seems very important to you, take your time, don’t come back for a while, how do you want to do it, we’ll explore that, whenever you are ready, you can use the church.  Keep trying to make sense of it all, publish your book if you wish, its your journey, you don’t have to leave, maybe there is a way to find your way in this in the future.  I will support you what ever you decide, you don’t need to struggle, see what happens, trust God.

Gracious, arms open, questioning and supporting. I left lunch but not the church.  I think it is over.  But the invitation to stay was very sweet, gentle and I accepted it.  I will publish my letter.

I will hold on to the possibility of a future, but for now I will not be going back to take a service, it just hurts too much.   And right now I don’t have the energy to try to do it differently; new words, new music and some new people, but maybe one day.  For now the door has to be left open and I have walked away.  I am grateful to the doorman, this kind Bishop.  I will not close it either.  God knows what will happen.

P.S Jan 2008; I have been to church in the last year, once with my father, in the New Roset in the UK.  It was lovely to be with him. The service would not have been more irrelevant to life if it had tried. I can’t go back. I will send a copy of this to all those named and have another lunch with Phillip. This time there will be no postscript just Thank you and I resign.

16th May 2008

Dear Phillip

It’s with real sadness and some relief that I enclose my letter to you and formally tender the return of my license to officiate.

We have discussed this in full and while I have been very grateful for you willingness to leave the door open to me in the last year I have only been into church once and have left reconfirmed that this is not the place for me any longer.

As I have said in the letter I will miss so much of the beauty and love that I have found in the sacraments of priesthood.   What I am finding is how to  notice that beauty and love in the everyday and while I am not quite clear about how to celebrate that with others I am excited about the journey.

I will be posting my letter on the Internet at the launch of ‘The end of Charity’ next week for those that are interested.  I have also enclosed a copy of the book and an invitation to the launch.

I look forward to seeing you there or for lunch soon.

With much love,

Nic Frances